What have I been up to

Firstly I do apologise for not sitting down and typing a blog for a while but I just have not had the time. Well what have I been doing or what haven’t I been doing is the question. The last few weeks I have been up to my neck in competition fishing as there is no better way to compeer your standard of fishing to someone else’s. I kicked of my first comp of the year at Garnffrwd Trout fishery Near Carmarthen In south Wales at the Airflo World Bank Maters Competition held by Iain Barr, the competition was a very interesting one as it was all catch and release and was all pegged meaning that you drew several numbers and they would be your pegs for the day not quite something I’m used to considering I’m normally in a boat in a 400 acre lake but anyways on to the fishing. The match fished very tough for me anyway as I lost 4 fish and had 7 better than some but not quite where I wanted to be. Top rod was a good friend of mine Chris Jones for Llanelli and Chris drew his favourite peg (lucky bugger) but Chris fished the match very well without any blanks in any session I think. The method that won it was pulling a blue damsel as fast as you can on an intermediate line that was the way to go. Chris finished with 13 fish and I finished with 7 putting me in 5^th place. A grate event and if held next year I shall be trying again to get in to the final , Fair play to Iain Barr a grate heat was held but not forgetting the huge amount of effort that Jamie at Garnffrwd puts in to every match that is held at Garnffrwd. Sorry I have no photos of the match its self but here is a fish I caught during the practise day  

Then from here it was on to the Inter teams at llandegdedd near Cwmbran not too far away from Newport. For those of you who don’t know what the Inter teams it is a competition held by W.S.T.A.A for all the members of each Welsh International Fly Fishing teams. It was a great match and some of the well-known anglers found it a tough match so coming in with two fish I was quite happy with as it was a very good laugh with my boat partner Tom. The tactic for the day was to try and get your two boobies as close to the bottom of the lake as quick as possible and try and keep them there with a very slow retrieve the equipment for the job was a 10ft 8 weight  Airflo Airlite Nan-Tec  Competition rod , matched up with Di8/7 competition Fly line from Airflo , here is one of the fish from the match

After this I returned to Llandegfedd a few more times for practise and one fishtec league match for the Welsh Hawks. Very recently meaning last week I have had some fishing which is out of this world  the Welsh Youth Fly Fishing Team decided to take a trip to Clywedog not too far away from Elan Valley in mid wales after being offered a  practise day by the fishery manager Russell Owen  preparing for the home International  at lough Owel Ireland.  The team was meeting at the lake at 8.45 AM so that meant I would have to leave Llanelli at 6.30 AM but it was well worth it. We finely found the lake after heading up and down a mountain in a very thick fog, I set up with a Airflo Stream Tec Nan Tec 10ft 4/5# with a Airflo Ridge double taper 4# fly line which is  a perfect set up for fishing the dry fly , the rod it soft enough to set the hook and stiff enough to put out a nice line and lift it off again , I set up with a 20 foot leader of 6lb Airflo G3 with two flies a black shuttlecock size 12 and a size 14 black foam back beetle on the dropper. We motored out   about 50 yard from the jetty and as soon as my flies hit the water I got snapped not concentrating on the flies , I was set up again same flies and leader and  10 minutes later I had my first Clywedog Rainbow in the boat .

A nice fish of around 2lb , after this the lake went through a dead spell and we felt that it was time for a move so we headed about half a mile down to where we felt a nice warm wind and no sun and It was like a shoal of tuna in one corner there must have been 100+ fish all feeding on the  Coch-y-Bondhu  (Beetle) and Cow duns which were blowing on from the field , I fished Clywedog  twice that weekend and had more than 60 fish to the boat here’s a few of them.

A big thank you to Russell Owen for inviting the team up there and Clywedog is now one of my favourite fisherys , the work that goes in to Clywedog to keep it as good as it is huge and if you have never fished Clywedog before I highly recommend it its fishing out of this world